Unearthing Gems
Navigating Structural Challenges in My Second Memoir
Embracing the Post-Writing Journey
Hello there,
It’s not unusual for an author to discover new material after their book is written. But it poses challenges!
I have now completed the task of wading through the rich vein of newly discovered journal entries. I identified the most interesting bits and, as a first step, pasted them into the existing manuscript for my second memoir.
Chronological Sequencing and Easy Edits
It was easy to figure out where to put each extract because of chronological sequencing. But the stuff I’ve found poses structural challenges for my book.
I’ve introduced 8,000 new words. That’s too many. I’m going to have to cut, cut, cut. Of the 99 episodes or chapters in the book, 11 have extra words. Of these, six have up to 230 extra words. I’m confident I’ll be able to edit these chapters and get them down to my target of about 800 words each. That’s the easy bit.
Facing the Harder Challenges
Three episodes have up to 600 extra words. Normally, stripping things back from 1400 words to 800 is easy-peasy. But it’s harder to pare back from what was my already-shaved final draft. But less is, still, more!
But three episodes have grown from 800 to 2475, 2,700 and 3,200 words respectively. Yikes! Combined, those three miscreants total some 8,400 words instead of 2,400!
Exploring Solutions
I have 99 episodes in the book. I could split the biggest chapter into two, adding one episode to the structure of the book. And I had 100 episodes in my first memoir, so that’s kinda neat.
If I split the biggest chapter into two, that’s some 1600 words in each, with the challenge to slash them to 800 in each. Sounds doable, as the new material is first draft and not final. Then the greatest challenge would be to peel the chapters with 2,475 and 2,700 beauties to the holy grail of 800 words.
Importance of Word Limits
Why strive for an 800-word limit? Well, an editor won’t thank you for giving them 1,200 words if they asked for 800. Or, if you’re watching a Netflix series, each episode is usually the same length. So, to suddenly hit the reader with much longer chapters kinda breaks the deal you have with the reader.
However, I could keep the 100-episode structure, while allowing three or four chapters to be longer than the rest. It’s striving for balance, maintaining a consistent structure while allowing some episodes to be longer than others to tell my story.
Conclusion
Anyway, I’ve faced and met every challenge thrown at me by this book to date and I know that I shall resolve these new issues. And it’s a fortunate challenge, as it is based on my discovery of the rich vein of unearthed gems discovered from a lost journal!
Happy to report a productive weekend. I have now successfully resolved and completed 10 of the 14 episodes; admittedly the easy and moderately difficult ones. I felt exhilared by 9pm last night. Resolving one of them in particular gave me quite a powerful personal insight.